Negative Emotions Diminished With Prayer

I want to express great gratitude for a healing I had, actually in the parking lot of a grocery store. For several days, I had been on a track of extreme self-absorption and self-criticism and it seemed that all I could see were the flaws. The negative emotions were off the charts.

Based upon a recommendation for a book during the recent Sunday Roundtable, I sent away for Triumph and Other Poems, by Max Dunaway. It had arrived in the mail that day but I hadn’t had a chance to open it yet, and it was on the back seat of the car. While I was waiting for my husband to get out of the grocery store, I could feel the self-criticism looming larger and larger and it became overwhelming. I reached for the book and randomly opened it to a very short poem:

Less and More
“More of You and less of me
In all men, Father, I would see:
More of Your divine reflection
Less of my own imperfection;
More of Your fidelity,
Less of my inconstancy;
More of Your unfailing kindness,
Less of my too frequent blindness;
More of Your sweet graciousness,
Less of my unloveliness.
More of You and less of me
In all men, Father, I would see.”

And with the end of this poem, it was like a shade that is pulled up in the morning and the sunlight comes through. Everything was different. It really was an instantaneous healing and it carried me then and still carries me now.

Sometimes I think I just have a bad habit of looking inward and analyzing and thinking how I could do better, how I could be better, and lately it’s come to me in so many ways that I know this is not okay anymore. This habit has to be broken because it’s not true about me or anyone else. So, I’ve been practicing how, when I see this pattern come up, this tendency to judge myself so unkindly, I catch it. And then the articles on the website seem to go right along as an answer to prayer. For example, the subject of tonight’s meeting: “What is Thy Birthright?”, and then a wonderful article on “The True Dominion of Man” by Mabel Lucas which seems to be saying that one can’t rely on anyone else to make you feel better but one has to really dig deep and know that the Christ, Truth is ever present for yourself and for everyone. And that really the only way we can be a blessing to others is to recognize our own struggles and to be alert and disciplined enough to refute the false suggestions when they come in.

So, I’m extremely grateful for the constancy of the Plainfield Church in spreading the teachings of Christian Science to the world. And of course, to Mary Baker Eddy and to Christ Jesus for giving us the tools that enable us to reflect this Truth to the world.